Neonatal Medicine News

The FDA recently approved Zulresso, an IV injection that is a positive allosteric modulator of gamma-aminobutyric-acid type A receptors, for treatment of postpartum depression in women aged 18 to 45 years, according to a press release from its manufacturer.

Automatically flagging new referrals and reserving clinic and challenge appointments for infants allowed for faster scheduling of peanut allergy evaluations than usual, according to a study presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Annual Scientific Meeting.

In 2015, northeast Brazil experienced a disproportionately higher rate of microcephaly than anywhere else in the country. Researchers explained that this is because the region had been hardest hit by the Zika virus outbreak, with 94% of an estimated 8.5 million total cases.

Women who took high doses of vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy did not impact their child’s risk for asthma by the age of 6 years, according to data recently published in JAMA.

A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggested that the diversity seen in human cytomegalovirus infection is a result of mixed cytomegalovirus infections. This is a potentially important finding for the development of a vaccine, researchers said.

Antenatal corticosteroid therapy, or ACT, is given to mothers at risk for preterm birth to promote fetal lung growth. However, many infants exposed to ACT in utero are not born preterm, and they are more likely to be smaller at birth than those who have not been exposed.

Children delivered by cesarean were more likely to have milk allergy and GERD, according to findings presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

Subcutaneous doses of a broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibody, known as VRC01LS, given at birth and 12 weeks were well-tolerated by HIV-exposed infants, according to the results of an open-label safety and pharmacokinetic study presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. Researchers are studying VRC01LS in combination with ART to prevent HIV infection in neonates.

Maternal infection during pregnancy significantly increased the risk for depression and autism spectrum disorder in offspring, according to a Swedish population-based cohort study published in JAMA Psychiatry.

Two case reports from Canada recently demonstrated how treatment can prevent HIV transmission from mother to child while breastfeeding, allowing mothers the option to choose how their infants are fed in a resource-rich setting.